page_title: Carolina parakeet
section_title: Taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Carolina parakeet / Taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: Juglane oliveformia. Carolina Parrot in[?] Willow from imitation of colors [?] Psittacus Carolinensis. N.p., June 9. 1811 depicts the Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) amidst a leafy branch. An early piece by John James Audubon. Courtesy Harvard University Press
context_page_description: The Carolina parakeet or Carolina conure is an extinct species of small green neotropical parrot with a bright yellow head, reddish orange face and pale beak native to the eastern, midwest and plains states of the United States. It was the only indigenous parrot within its range, as well as one of only two parrots native to the United States. It was found from southern New York and Wisconsin to Kentucky, Tennessee and the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic seaboard to as far west as eastern Colorado. It lived in old-growth forests along rivers and in swamps. It was called puzzi la née or pot pot chee by the Seminole and kelinky in Chickasaw. Though formerly prevalent within its range, the bird had become rare by the middle of the 19th century. The last confirmed sighting in the wild was of the ludovicianus subspecies in 1910. The last known specimen perished in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918 and the species was declared extinct in 1939.
context_section_description: Carolinensis is a species of the genus Conuropsis, one of numerous genera of New World Neotropical parrots in family Psittacidae of true parrots.
  The specific name Psittacus carolinensis was assigned by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae published in 1758. The species was given its own genus Conuropsis by Italian zoologist and ornithologist Tommaso Salvadori in 1891 in his Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, volume 20. The name is derived from the Greek-ified conure ("parrot of the genus Conurus" an obsolete name of genus Aratinga) + -opsis ("likeness of") and Latinized Carolina (from Carolana, an English colonial province) + -ensis (of or "from a place"), therefore a bird "like a conure from Carolina".
  There are two recognized subspecies. The Louisiana subspecies of the Carolina parakeet, C. c. ludovicianus, was slightly different in color than the nominate subspecies, being more bluish-green and generally of a somewhat subdued coloration, and became extinct in much the same way, but at a somewhat earlier date (early 1910s). The Appalachian Mountains separated these birds from the eastern C. c. carolinensis.
caption: C. c. ludovicianus by John James Audubon
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